As regards to state of the art, the separator (dust chamber) for separating solid particles from vapour-gas mixture known and used by patent applicant is described as follows with reference to FIG. 1. In order to get a clearer and better view of the device known from state of the art, and also to draw out differences with this invention, details of the separator that correspond to those known from the state of the art are marked with the same position numbers, adding an apostrophe (') to position number in order to differentiate between the two.
The separator (dust chamber) for separating solid particles from vapour-gas mixture known from state of the art 1′ comprises of cylindrical enclosures of various diameters 2′, 2″ with inner refractory lining, which are connected by transition cone 20, first and second stage cyclones 3′, 4′, dust removal conduits 5′, vapour-gas mixture from inlet vent 13′ on first cyclone 3′ and vapour-gas mixture containing semi-coke particles from inlet vent 9′ to main body.
This structure has several shortcomings that decrease the cleaning efficiency and cause equipment failures.
In this device, the physical settling of semi-coke from vapour-gas mixture is performed by gravity, which, proceeding from the structure of device, causes:                in the cylindrical part of the main body (for example, a decrease of diameter from about 6.5 m to about 3.96 m) gravitational settling of semi-coke from vapour-gas mixture causes a heavy semi-coke sediment on the surface of transition cone 20, which slowly decreases the diameter of transition cone 20. This in turn hinders the purposeful work of the dust chamber, i.e. the gravitational settling of semi-coke decreases, because the speed of vapour-gas mixture going through main body accelerates so that semi-coke particles are carried through by vapour-gas mixture, i.e. the removal speed of semi-coke particles is higher than the gravitational settling speed of particles. Decrease in gravitational settling results in unwanted increase in semi-coke concentration in vapour-gas mixture exiting from second cyclone 4′.        internal two-layer refractory lining 7′ of dust chamber is made of firebricks with high porosity and cracks, and therefore has several shortcomings. The pores and cracks in firebricks cause vapour-gas mixture infiltration through thermal insulation, e.g. bricks located behind firebricks, which cause hydrocarbon vapour in vapour-gas mixture to condense on the internal metal wall of dust chamber main body. This contravenes with the objective of refractory lining and insulation, because the material used for refractory lining loses its thermal insulation properties. Decrease in thermal insulation causes semi-coke to stick on internal walls of refractory lining.        design of dust chamber for cleaning vapour-gas mixture from semi-coke particles includes cyclones 3′, 4′, which are placed inside dust chamber. Due to this kind of placement and the type of the second cyclone 4′, the dust chamber known from state of the art has several deficiencies:                    in treatment process, cyclones 3′, 4′, are filled with semi-coke deposits, which in turn causes the cyclones and the main metal bodies of their bins to heat up,            due to large dimensions, rigid fixation and thermal expansion, the cyclones placed inside dust chamber need large diameter lamella compensators 17 that are placed in the joint between bin and cyclone. Since this location is most subjected to semi-coke removal, it will cause breakdown of lamella compensators and following leakage. This in turn causes the stoppage of cyclone-operations for repairs. This deficiency is also present in gas conduit having between first and second cyclone the lamella compensator 18′.            the inlet conduit 13′ of first cyclone 3′ is located horizontally, during the operation, starting and stopping the inlet conduit tends to collect semi-coke residue, which results in decrease in cyclone efficiency.            due to high speeds of vapour-gas mixture in cyclones, those cyclones are subject to high abrasive wear, which causes a decrease in the thickness of the walls of a cyclone's main body. Also, due to the fact that they are located inside a dust chamber, it is not possible to carry out cyclone wall thickness measurements at any given point, and an excessive wear of cyclone wall will stop the whole machine.            Second cyclone has a very high pressure drop.                        large amounts of deposited semi-coke (150 m3), proceeding from above listed deficiencies, cause a longer time spent on maintenance and repairs.        